MODIFIED DRIFT ALONG CONNECTICUT RIVER. 



29 



At Woodsville a great depth of material was brought into the valley 

 by the Lower Ammonoosuc and Wells rivers. The former stream has 

 cut its channel 200 feet deep through its delta, wide areas of which still 

 remain on both sides. An old outlet of Wells river may be seen on its 

 north side, one mile above its mouth, occupied at the close of the ice 

 period until it cleared away a hundred feet or more of modified drift 

 from the pre-glacial rocky bed in which it now flows. A well-marked 

 kame occurs here, commencing in Bath half a mile north-west from the 

 Narrows. It has been cut through by the river, and appears on the east 

 side of the railroad at and above the junction, and again at the south-west 

 side of Wells River depot, being more than a mile 

 long. It is composed of coarse gravel and sand, 

 anticlinally stratified, with varying height from 

 80 to 150 feet above the river. It is well shown 

 by cuttings, but otherwise might escape notice, as 

 most of it is partially or wholly concealed by the 

 ordinary alluvium. In position, material, and strat- 

 ification, this is like the long kame which extends 

 in this valley from Lyme to Windsor ; but in the 

 twenty-four miles from Wells River to Lyme no 

 similar ridge is found. 



From Wells river to Wait's river, at Bradford, 

 the lowest terrace or interval is one half mile to 

 one mile in width ; and the river sweeps in broad 

 curves from side to side between its bordering up- 

 per terraces. By the largest of these bends, called 

 the Ox-bow, the river traverses two and a half 

 miles to make one half mile of advance, by which 

 a beautiful expanse of interval is added to New- 

 bury. An old channel formerly left this and as 

 much more on its east side. This ancient course 

 extended from the north-west end of the Ox-bow 

 south-west to the railroad, which it followed to i^o 

 the brook that flows through Newbury village, by p ^ 

 which it passed east to its present channel. North Haverhill is situated 

 on the highest normal terrace, 107 feet above the river and 27 feet higher 



